At the heart of any successful business is its customers. A strong customer base is a business’s greatest asset. After all, without customers, there is nobody to buy their product.
Therefore, maintaining good relations with customers and delivering excellent customer service should be a primary focus of your business. Cultivating rich customer data can help build a better product, diagnose areas of the product or service that need improving and understand how customers are using your product.
To manage and nurture a strong two-way relationship between a business and a consumer, many firms use Customer relationship management (CRM) software. It has become an essential component of many businesses’ interactions with customers. You may have heard the debate playing out in business circles of Salesforce vs Hubspot, but whichever CRM you choose, here are the four ways your small business can benefit from the use of CRM software.
Improved Internal Communication
Do you ever call a customer to relay some information to them only for them to tell you that your colleague has already notified them? CRM software can help avoid these kinds of mix ups and ensure important customer interactions are not missed or repeated.
CRM software records every interaction between your staff and the customer. All of this information is stored in an easy-to-access location within the software. Because it is all stored in the cloud, this information is accessible anywhere by anyone within the company across all departments. This way, everyone is on the same page and knows where the last communication with the customer left off.
Improved Customer Service
By having all this information on a customer easily accessible, your sales representatives and customer service agents will be able to provide a better experience to existing and potential customers.
If there is an issue that needs resolving, for example, agents can pull up all the previous activity including their purchase history and any preferences they have for products and services.
Increased Sales
Having access to more information about a customer means your sales representatives know more about what products they may need in the future. They can preempt customer’s product needs by upselling and cross selling additional products. This leads to an increase in sales and a stronger bottom line for the business.
Increased Productivity
A central client database leads to higher staff productivity. If a salesperson or customer liaison agent finds themselves visiting a client in a certain geographical area, they can instantly access all the other clients in that area and pay them a visit, saving time and money.
Additionally, instead of relying on emails or verbal communication to relay conversations with clients around the office, the central database relays all that information.
The very best CRM solutions for small business also have the capability to automate small tasks like form filling. They autofill reports and generic forms, freeing up time for your staff to focus on what matters: building meaningful relationships with customers.
Business owners and managers are always on the lookout for ways to keep customers happy, work more productively and automate simple, mundane tasks. A good CRM for small business will do all three and more and should be an integral part of your business’s customer relations strategy.
